O, Cousin Mine by sallysavestheday

O, Cousin Mine

Read O, Cousin Mine

We are not as different as you would like to think. The Kindler lights the world for us, as well. Those pale points guide us; their distant fire yet recalls our names. On the coldest nights, when the sky’s deep dome opens, what remains of you in us still sings. The fear cleans our ancient wounds; in our terror, we still revere the stars.

The deep places embrace us, containing and consoling us as your towers and spires and peaks hold you up, lift you to meet the world’s fire, the bite of the answering air. The musk of our tunnels is no less sweet, down in the dark, in the heat. One tangle of limbs is not unlike another: you in your soft beds, we in our coiled heaps, all breathing.

Can you not see the beauty in a sharp claw, the fine curve of a tusk? The roll of a shoulder, dense as iron, perfectly suited to the work of the world: the digging, carrying, hauling, clasping that must be done? As you love the sun’s bright face, should we not love a golden eye, a bronzed fang, the sheen of coppery sweat on curling backs and straining thighs?

Know this: every sound has its echo. You dance – in the clearings, in the great halls, on the shores of the moonlit lakes. The pulse that drives you is our drums in the deep; our hollow hearts, still beating.